5 Steps to Spring Clean Your Debt

Every year many of us spring clean our homes, hauling the junk out of our closets and only keeping things we really need. It's a good time to reflect on the things we own, what works well for us and what we want to keep.

This spring, do some financial spring cleaning on your debt and give it a good overhaul.

Take stock: Write down your current accounts, interest rates, balances, and monthly payment. If you can, find your balances from the previous month and note if you're increasing or decreasing your debt and by how much.

Do a stress test: Look at your debt payments relative to your monthly take-home pay. If you're paying over 36% to debt payments (include car leases and rent in the debt payments) you're probably over the amount that's healthy for you. A DTI calculator like DebtScore.com can help you perform these calculations.

Run debt-free scenarios: Once we're in debt it can feel like we'll never get out and, as a result, sometimes we just give up even trying. But the secret with debt is that it's usually possible to pay off credit card debts in as few as 3-4 years by just continuing to pay what we do today and not charging more. And if we take that money we used to pay to credit cards and put it to the mortgage, we can pay that off in 10-15 years. Sometimes you can save over $50K in interest. Sites like SavvyMoney.com or Oweing.com offer free calculators that can help you understand how quickly you can get out of debt and will give you a payoff schedule to show you how it can be done.

Lower your APRs: How are the APRs on your credit cards? If there's a big difference across your cards, this may indicate that some of your cards have rates that are too high. You may be able to negotiate lower rates with your lenders or you may want to look at new cards. With mortgage rates at historic lows, you should look at refinancing options.

Create a debt plan: Even if you don't want to create a detailed plan, set a goal of getting out of debt. The Military.com Debt Boot Camp can get you started.

With a little bit of work, you can haul that debt load into the sun, give it a good airing out, and get yourself started on a better path.

Military News App by Military.com

Download the new Military.com News App for Android on Google Play or for Apple devices on iTunes!

Contributor

You can get out of debt on your own, but you're more likely to succeed with some help.

SavvyMoney's debt payoff solution help members build a personalized "debt-loss" plan and stick to it. Users pay off nearly $6,200 of debt per year, five times more than people attempting to do it on their own.

Described as "Weight Watchers for debt," SavvyMoney has users pay off over $1.5B in debt and counting.

SavvyMoney makes it easy, simply enter your account information, and SavvyMoney will update and optimize your plan to tell you exactly what to do to get out of debt as soon as possible.